Tragically she left a voicemail for her friend saying ‘help me’ just before she died

Her last words were “help me”, police said.

Tragically her friend did not receive the message until she checked her phone the next morning.

The 18-year-old was said to be three-and-a-half times over the drink-drive limit after arriving home from Quinn’s Bar in Newcastle in January this year, and had been carried into her house by friends, reports the Mirror.

Her father Bartley Finnegan, who was not home at the time, attended her inquest today

It’s thought that a cigarette or an electrical appliance sparked the fire at the house, above her father’s butchers shop in Castlewellan, Co. Down, just after 4am.

However firefighters were unable to officially determine why the blaze started, but her father Bartley Finnegan, who was not home that night and had been due to go on a skiing holiday the following day, said there was an electric heater in the house.

Forensic scientist Julian Halligan was unable to be definitive about the cause but suggested it may have been from an electrical heater plugged into a hallway socket or careless disposal of cigarettes.

He said the most extensive damage was in the doorway area of one of the bedrooms, where the fire had burned through the floor into the ceiling of a butcher’s shop below.

Related stories

SIR ON TRIAL

Married boarding school teacher 'had sex with pupil on his wife's WEDDING DRESS'